Marketing Innovations in the Automotive Industry Meeting the Challenges of the Digital Age

This book proposes that, within the automotive industry, revised marketing principles and innovative marketing strategies are needed to address more effectively the unprecedented challenges posed by the modern digital revolution. The starting point for these proposals is a thorough analysis of the evolution of marketing in the industry across three ages of technological innovations – the mechanical, the electronic, and the digital. The main objectives are first, to illustrate how study of the past can help carmakers as they move forward into the unknown, and second, to identify the main choices that they will face. The central premise is that unusual times call for unusual strategies. By mining the past in order to foresee likely future developments regarding competition and marketing strategies within the car industry, the book will appeal both to researchers and to present or future managers in the automotive and other innovation-driven sectors.

Part 1 The mechanical age: from the early years to the 1950s.- Part 2 The 1960s: towards convergence.- Part 3 The electronic and software age: a rapidly evolving landscape.- Part 4 The Digital Age: the changing face of marketing.

Elena Candelo, PhD, is Associate Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Turin, Italy, where she currently serves as Director of the MBA International Executive programme in partnership with Fiat Chrysler Automobile. During her career, she has coordinated several research projects and seminars on the automotive industry. Her topics of research concern strategic marketing, innovation management, and the automotive industry. She teaches Corporate Strategy and Marketing, and is the author of many international publications.